Becomming a knit wit

It all started with knitting. I had always fancied learning, I remember I had tried it in school, but I didn't have the patience or the concentration to properly learn it back then. What I didn't realise then, was that once you learn it, you don't need much patience or concentration, because it's something that is so easy you can do it while you watch tv in the evenings.

It was when my bf was still out of work that I started with the knitting, I decided to make a scarf as my first project, as most people do. It was starting to get really cold here in Sweden, and being my first winter here, I was finding what they called their milder temperatures, freezing. Knowing nothing about knitting, I purchased some yellow, really thin, fluffy wool from a bargain bucket, this was a massive mistake. I had to use, I think, size 4 needles, which if you haven't knitted are really really thin and knitting anything with these, especially as a beginner, takes ages. It took me days to knit this scarf, I dropped stitches all over the place, mostly because the wool was so thin, and fluff,y it was hard to see where I was all the time. I kept knitting despite all the mistakes, I decided that whatever it turned out like, I would love it because I would have made it myself. Eventually I had used up the four 50g balls and the scarf still wasn't quite as long as I wanted it. I went into the garn store to buy some more, only to find that they no longer had the balls in the bargain bucket. Ahhhh, all my hard work and I couldn't finish it.

The lady in the store said I should add a new colour to the end, and that I would be able to pick up my first stitches and knit on the other end (the beginning of the piece), but it all sounded so complicated to me then, I discussed it over with my bf and decided that I would put this scarf down to experience and choose some wool that I really loved and start over. I ended up with a beautiful pink scarf, it was much neater than my first attempt, and the wool, even though it was only DK, was much easier to work with. But I had done it, my first sucsessful knitting project was completed, and I loved it. It was just a simple stockinette stitch scarf, but I had made it and I was tasting my first glory, it felt good.

Welcome to me

Hello, my name is KirstyBell and I'm new to blogging. I've heard about people doing it and I've even read and subscribed to some blogs, but I never really got it, until now.

Let me tell you about myself and the reason for this blog, and then we'll see if you're still interested. I used to live in a small seaside town on the south coast of England. I had a hectic life of socialising with friends, and a stressful office job. When I was 26 I packed up my life and went to Australia on a working holiday visa for a year. After a few months I met my Swedish love and we travelled together, living in eachothers pockets 24 hours a day 7 days a week. We both applied for our second year visa's and travelled for an extra year together, living through some hard time which involved no money and a tiny dome tent, but we survived everything together (and we didn't argue once). When our second year was up, we came to Sweden together, to my bf's home town. We moved in to a small cabin on his parents property surrounded by forest and lake, it was, and still is a peaceful little paradise. For the first six months here my bf struggled to find a job, so we had adventures together, but in January, he became full time employed and I found myself alone. Luckily for me, I love my own company so I wasn't fazed by this. I suddenly realised I had all the time in the world to do all the things I had never had the time to do before, I could master skills I had only dreamed of learning.

This is the story of my journey into my deepest darkest interests.